It just occurred to me that the best way starting to use Dorico would be in the following way:
Before you start entering any music at all, go to the library menu and, one after the other, go through the following three Options dialogs:
Layout Options
Notation Options
Engrave Options
and change every single setting in each of the three categories to your liking.
This means you have to literally go through each setting, knowing that it’s there, learning what it does and what its options are.
This approach leverages Dorico’s graphical representation of available options in the best way, since it’s easy to see what does what without guesswork.
Should you come across any terminology or concept unfamiliar to you, ask in the forum.
I almost guarantee this will throw up the least obstacles in the long run and jibes best with Dorico’s top-down philosophy.
It might take you a while to do this, but it will be well worth your time.
Don’t you think they could go through “Dorico First steps” first, to avoid being overwhelmed by the number of options? At least, seing what Dorico can do quite easily will maintain the
My 2c.
Hi @YourMusic.Pro,
may I dissent?: how do you know “how do you like it”, without any written music to see the effect in a particular context?
I think that the Dorico factory defaults are not casual, are well thought out, and tend to give good results for many situations (especially for beginners).
Given that the factory settings are generally very generous in terms of spacings for example, they are nevertheless working well together (think for example at the proportion between staff spacings of different kinds and system spacing, but also many other settings that work logically and visually together…).
If something doesn’t give the expected result in a project, I found myself often going back to the factory settings, where mostly everything falls into place, and start tweaking from there to reach the desired result in the context of a particular setup, situation, and final needed result.
And yes: the Library Manager is a wonderful tool to see how much settings are away from the factory default.
I would therefore consider your suggestion to be addressed to advanced users, instead of beginners. (As always , my 2 cents)
That’s what I did when I first switched. (First Steps didn’t exist then, and I can’t be bothered watching hours of videos.) I think I got to Layout last of the 3. I just entered enough music to see how various settings had an effect, but basically went through and tweaked everything to my preference. Of course, I was coming from Finale where I had probably changed every single default setting, LOL.
Sorry Benji - I don’t agree. It’s like having to read all the detail in a car’s manual before learning how to drive.
I’ve been with Dorico from the start and there are many settings, especially in Engrave mode, that I have never needed and in all likelihood never will need. Occasionally I’ll find something I want to tweak and, for me, that’s what those options are there for.
I’m with Marc - I think that First Steps is the best, and the most enjoyable, path in to learning about Dorico.
Exactly. We all have different priorities with the software – as one who is primarily interested in playback features, I spend little time with for instance the Engrave mode and still don’t know some of its features because I’m unlikely to ever use them (indeed the whole point of Dorico for me is it should take care of most of the music formatting automatically so I can get on with more interesting things..). Others who work in publishing or are guaranteed live performances of their scores may be little interested in playback and may know virtually nothing about, for instance, Expression Maps.
I agree that most people will probably not need to change most of the settings – but when you do want to change something, you need to know where you should be looking. Understanding the division between Engraving Options and Notation Options, particularly, is important.
(Engraving Options being more concerned with the appearance of things, and applying to everything; Notation Options being more substantive, e.g. Beam grouping, and applying per Flow.)
So that when you do want to change something, you know roughly where you should be looking.
